> Then think about all the software you used 10 years ago. How much has changed? For me, not a lot.

This rings true for me as well. We got so good at fast innovation cycles in the digital space that we ran out of brain juice way faster than in the "world of atoms". Our constraints now are good ideas, and we haven't gotten better at getting them

We had this appliance which didn't do much on our network. It went end of life and we got quotes for $300,000 + yearly support for same brand. We found some other brands, big name was a million $, no name was more like $125,000.

After lots of attempts to get budget, no go.

I understood how the original appliance worked; I decided to AI code a replacement. After about 2 weeks I had a technically in production alternative that is arguably better.

So we have this interesting situation where, do you even need to buy software anymore? I really doubt it.